


and there was light

by rudimentaryflair



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Atheism, Character Study, Churches & Cathedrals, Don't copy to another site, Eames-centric (Inception), Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Religion, creative liberties were taken with eames' backstory, idk how to tag this, in which we learn i cannot write Eames' POV for shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-23 18:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21085934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudimentaryflair/pseuds/rudimentaryflair
Summary: Whatever Eames is expecting to be in the second to last pew, it isn’t Arthur, pressed to the edge of the bench with the PASIV on the ground between his legs. Eames pauses, wondering if he can slip out before he’s seen, but then Arthur lifts his head and spots him hovering at the double doors, and if Eames leaves now it’ll just look more incriminating.Alternatively, Eames and Arthur go to church.





	and there was light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wysiwygot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wysiwygot/gifts).

> This drabble is a gift for the lovely [Parlez](https://parlezvoustomhardy.tumblr.com)! The prompt was a spiritual!Eames meeting up with a secular!Arthur and Arthur being confused about this new side of Eames.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> (Not betaed - we die like men.)

Whatever Eames is expecting to be in the second to last pew, it isn’t Arthur, pressed to the edge of the bench with the PASIV on the ground between his legs. Eames pauses, wondering if he can slip out before he’s seen, but then Arthur lifts his head and spots him hovering at the double doors, and if Eames leaves now it’ll just look more incriminating.

“Mr. Eames,” Arthur hisses right into his ear when he sits down. He reminds Eames oddly of a cat stranded atop a frozen lake. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Attending mass. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Very funny,” Arthur retorts without missing a beat. “I could humor you, but I have a drop-off that can’t be interfered with, so tell me, what are you _ really _doing here?” 

Eames doesn’t answer, just glances over at him and raises an eyebrow. Arthur stares patiently like he’s waiting for a punchline. 

The penny finally drops. “You’re serious.”

“I am,” Eames agrees.

“Really.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not joking.”

“Are you laughing?” Eames says, waspish. The incredulity is bothersome, the way a too-large coat is bothersome, like Arthur guessed his size wrong but is still expecting him to fit into the wrong measurements. 

Arthur looks punched. 

“Darling,” Eames amends hastily, before turning resolutely towards the front of the church.

The dark wood of the building is spliced with the occasional golden candlelight and jeweled glass mosaic. It’s been far too long since he’s been to mass. While being a conman has its benefits - hefty paychecks, flexible hours, and nonexistent management, to name a few - it doesn’t allow him a lot of peace. Last Sunday, he’d been shaking off a tail in Syracuse. The Sunday before that, he shot an old friend between the eyes for costing him ten grand in medical expenses. Payback’s a bitch.

_ Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, _he thinks wryly.

He watches the stream of people coming in through the sides grow steadier as his watch ticks closer to eight. It’s shaping up to be a bigger service than what he’s used to attending; he figures that’s what Arthur was hoping for, the crowd helping to conceal whatever business he was on.

“You don’t seem like the church-going type,” Arthur comments after a length of silence. 

“You’re hurting my feelings, dear,” Eames says, because he doesn’t really know what else to say. 

“I just want to point out that stealing is a sin.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What do you think we do for a living, Eames?” 

“I think achieving sainthood is an impossible ambition,” Eames snaps. It comes out sharper than he intended. He smooths out his expression and tries for a smirk. 

He’ll let Arthur chew him out later, in all his secular and pragmatic splendor, but right now is Eames’ time, Eames’ respite from breaking into people’s heads and illegally boarding planes to avoid armed hitmen. Like hell is he going to let Arthur take it away from him.

Arthur moves to reply, but the pastor chooses that moment to step up to the altar for the introductory rites. The starting hymn rings out loud and clear, makes him sit up straight in his seat. He’s impressed by the unassailability of the singer, of the pastor, of the people with their heads turned up like petals in the pews. It’s almost enough to put him at ease.

But what passes next is probably one of the longest hours of Eames’ life. Arthur is a chilly, rigid figure beside him, his presence like a brackish penny under his tongue; Eames can feel the gears whirring inside of his head, thinking, analyzing, nuts and bolts sliding around as he wonders what the both of them are doing under this roof. Sometimes Eames wonders too, but not the way Arthur does, from his lay island of reason. 

The ushers glide out to the aisles and he stands, Arthur trailing awkwardly behind him. 

“What happened to the drop-off?” Eames asks. He puts the bread to his mouth and sends a quick prayer up. _ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. _

“Later.” Arthur swirls his wine and looks at it skeptically. “I hope this is the good stuff.” He sips. His face betrays nothing. 

After the service, Eames makes his way up to the front, where the candles are. There’s a pile of unlit ones by the stairs, where a small line is forming. He assumes that Arthur’s disappeared into the crowd of leaving families and widows, and is surprised to find him standing by his elbow.

“What’s this for?” Arthur asks.

“Thought you didn’t believe in this kind of thing.”

“Humor me.”

Through the window, Eames can see that the sky is dark. It’s a cloudy night, the stars invisible behind a thick lining of fog. Inside, the ushers turn off the lights one by one, until the only things painting their shadows on the wooden floorboards are the flames at the altar. His older brother took him to a night service once, back before Eames stole the keys to his Aston Martin and flipped their parents off in front of the Kensington mansion. Eames wonders if he still goes.

“Each candle represents someone,” Eames explains, taking a match. “You light it to send them a prayer.”

“Oh,” Arthur says. He looks at the one in Eames’ hands. “And who’s that for?”

Too many people, Eames wants to say. His mother, his father. Some days, his pig-headed older brother, who had too much money and too little compassion, but who held his six-year-old hand when his goldfish died and they buried it in the garden. The girl with the gold cross who patched him up after a botched job in New Orleans and was found dead in a ditch a week later. 

His old friend, who got high on tales of dreamshare and tried to blow his brains out to get into the game. The one who went to services with him so he didn’t get lonely, who hated the taste of wine and always made a face whenever they lined up in the aisles. 

_ (“You do know you can just eat the bread, right?” Eames had said, wincing. “You don’t have to torture yourself like that.” _

_ He laughed. “Torture? He let Himself be crucified for our sake. This is the least I can do.”) _

And sometimes, on very few days, when his heart feels like an overflowing sink, with all the people he's lost spilling out, he prays for a certain insufferable point-man, so he doesn’t lose him too.

But today is not one of those days, Eames thinks, lighting his candle.

“This one is for me,” he says. He sets it down and watches it flicker. 

“Why?” 

What a strange question, Eames thinks. “It’s important to remember where you come from.”

Arthur looks confused. He has the ‘I don’t follow’ expression he always saves for clients with impossible demands or Cobb whenever he wants Arthur to plan some kind of outlandish stunt. “From God?”

“No,” Eames says patiently. “From those before us. From love. From faith.”

“Can’t say I have much of that anymore.”

This was getting a little ridiculous. “Don’t you have a drop-off to attend to?” 

Arthur ignores him. He stares at the candles. “The notion of a higher power is just very.” He hesitates. 

Illogical. Idiotic. Insane. Eames can see the words fighting for a place in his mouth. 

“Unsound,” Arthur finishes.

Eames barks a laugh. “Life is inherently unsound.”

But Arthur is sound. Arthur is rational. Arthur has both feet planted firmly on Earth and has made his home in the cold bed of science. That is just the way he is.

And who is Eames to deny him that right?

He’s about to shoo Arthur away, tell him to get on with whatever covert mission he’s on, but then Arthur reaches for a match.

“She didn’t believe in this stuff either,” Arthur says, lighting his own candle. His face is unreadable. “I don’t think she would mind, though.”

Whatever Eames is about to say dries up on his tongue.

“I remember the day she jumped,” Arthur continues, not looking at Eames. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh God, why? Who allowed this to happen?’ Do you remember?”

Eames remembers. He remembers the phone call. He remembers stumbling into St. Joseph’s in Cairo and looking up at Christ on the cross, furious and aching and thinking, no, praying, _ motherfucker, it was the least you could do. _

He tries to say, _ I’m sorry. _What comes out instead is, “Remember where she came from.”

They watch the candles burn and the smoke rise.

“Eames.” 

Eames stops with one foot out the door. He waits.

By the candles, still standing where Eames left him, Arthur tilts his head back, as though trying to follow the smoke through the slats in the ceiling. “I still don’t believe in it.” He pauses. “But. I think I understand it.”

Eames smiles, because he knows Arthur can’t see him. “No you don’t.”

There’s a strange, choking sound from behind him, like slaughtered laughter. It ends just as quickly as it starts. “No, I don’t.”

“That’s okay, you know,” Eames offers.

“Yeah.” He can hear the grin in Arthur’s voice. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in a while, so I apologize if this fic is a little wonky - I also very rarely write in Eames' POV, so this was quite the adventure! That being said, I'm quite happy with how this turned out. 
> 
> I'm [rudimentaryflair](http://rudimentaryflair.tumblr.com) on Tumblr! :)


End file.
